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An Analysis Of Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? By Joyce Carol Oates

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In the story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates Connie's mother was very jealous of her looks. Her 15-year-old daughter knew she was beautiful, and she loved her looks. Always looks at herself in mirrors and admires her looks. Her mother was always shaming her for it. Saying that she doesn't have to look at herself that much. This sounds very envious considering her mother is no longer young and beautiful she takes it out on her daughter. She'd go after things like 'Why don't you keep your room clean like your sister? How've you got your hair fixed - what the hell stinks? Hair spray? You don't see your sister using that junk." Her mother criticizes and brings her down to the point where she wishes she …show more content…

In the story, Connie enjoys going out with her friends. They were dropped off at a local shopping plaza, but they run across a highway to a drive-in movie where the older kids hang out and meet a guy. They end up talking for hours. Which was one of the best nights of Connie's life. She really enjoyed the time spent. She loved the attention she was getting from this older guy. When one of the guys from the drive-in movie comes to Connie's house while she was home alone. He tries to persuade her to get in his car for a ride, but she becomes suspicious. She was very hesitant to get in and go for a ride with this strange man. He becomes extremely persistent in her getting in the car. Threatening her at some points so that she would get in. saying that he could break down the door. he'll do something terrible to her family when they come home if she doesn’t get in the car. This was typically the guy Connie likes to attract his appearance as a bad boy. This caught her attention, but as soon as this older man pays her explicit sexual attention and starts threatening her, she is

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Connie had a “nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people’s faces to make sure her own was all right”(Oates 1). This vain behavior has Connie comparing herself to everyone she comes in contact with. The only thing Connie cared for was her looks “she knew she was pretty and that was everything”(Oates 1). Connie constantly compares herself to her sister June. June was “plain and chunky and steady”(Oates 1) unlike Connie who’s beauty, thinness, and unsteady attitude upset her mother.

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The first time Connie notices AF is at a restaurant. Connie notices AF staring at her with a wide grin. Some time later AF goes to Connie’s house to take her for a ride. Connie, however, does not want to go for a ride with him. AF tries to be friendly to Connie and shows her the car that he drives.

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Analysis Of Carol Joyce Oates Where Are You Going Where Have You Been?

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Carol Joyce Oates’ “Where Are You Going Where Have You Been?” presents how falling into temptation leads to giving up control and innocence. Though her mother is unapproving of her actions, Connie spends her time seeking attention from male strangers. Home alone, Connie is approached by a compelling creature who convinces her to leave her life and join him on his unknown journey. Through disapproving her family, having multiple appearances, listening to music, and her desperation to receive attention from boys, Connie gives up control of herself losing the purity of adolescents and contributing to her detrimental fate. It is imperative that one should not be controlled because of a desire to impress others.

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Oates’s biography explained her fiction writing as a mixture violence and sexual obsession. The writing style definitely fits the plot point of this story with both of her literary ingredients being present in not only Arnold Friend but in Connie as well. The Protagonist Connie is presented in a very self-centered way. She is obsessed with her looks and often fantasizes about all the boys she meets.

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“But now her looks were gone and that was why she was always after Connie.” (Oates ). Also, there is another opportunity for friendship within the family, between Connie and her sister, however, that is lost in their rivalry and hostility. “Her sister was so plain and chunky and steady that Connie had to hear her praised all the time – by her mother and her mother's sisters.” ( ).

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Like most teenagers she is thinking only in the moment and what is going to please her. Basically Connie and her friend go to a restaurant and this creepy guy named Eddie came in to talk with them, obviously Connie isn’t thinking straight and she leaves the restaurant with this stranger Eddie. Leaving her friend behind. In the book she states “I just hate to leave her like that” (Oates, 391).

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Analyzing Development: “Where is Here?” by Joyce Carol Oates Gothic literature holds an allure that readers and audiences often draw into; its combination of wickedness, mystery, death, and even romance stirs a sensation, a charm no other genre has. Through this charm, Edgar Allan Poe, the "founding voice of American gothic tradition," was able to pioneer interest into many future writers in the American writing industry. Specifically, modern writer Joyce Carol Oates implicated traditional gothic elements from Poe. Using dialogue, diction, and the interaction between characters, Oates carefully establishes the foundations and elements of spookiness into her gothic story—“Where is Here?”

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